India says USTR failed to prove trade harm

Washington, July 8 (IANS) India on Wednesday told the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) that its proposed 12.5 per cent tariff on Indian imports lacks the legal and evidentiary basis required under Section 301, arguing that Washington has failed to establish any causal link between India’s policies and harm to U.S. commerce.

Presenting India’s case before a USTR public hearing, Dr. Brij Mohan of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said the investigation relied on broad assumptions rather than country-specific evidence and urged the U.S. to reconsider its findings against India.

“The USTR has neither identified nor engaged with the discrete elements of Section 301 for any country, including India, that directly amounts to an unreasonable act, policy or practice,” Dr. Mohan said in his testimony. He added that the current determination represented “a departure from the USTR’s previous determination” in earlier Section 301 investigations.

He argued that the absence of an explicit prohibition on imports made with forced labour should not be interpreted as permitting such practices.

“The absence of an explicit forced labour import ban does not constitute acquiescing to or permitting forced labour in any form,” he said, adding that the International Labour Organization’s approach recognises that eliminating forced labour requires multiple policy measures tailored to individual countries rather than relying solely on import bans.

A central plank of India’s argument was that the USTR had failed to demonstrate that India’s policies burden U.S. commerce, a key legal requirement under Section 301.

“There is inadequate and insufficient evidence” to show that the absence of an import prohibition in India provides an unfair competitive advantage or harms U.S. industry, Dr. Mohan said.

He pointed specifically to the USTR’s own trade data.

“In fact, USTR’s data in Appendix A, such as in relation to cotton, rice and tobacco, contradicts” the adverse findings against India, he said.

According to Dr. Mohan, the data show rising U.S. exports and negligible or declining third-country competition in India in those product categories, indicating that the absence of an import prohibition has not adversely affected U.S. commerce.

India also challenged the methodology used by the USTR in compiling Appendices B and C of the report.

Dr. Mohan said the methodology relied on broad trade patterns and a simple “yes or no” assessment rather than evidence showing that inputs allegedly produced with forced labour were actually incorporated into products exported from India to the United States.

Instead, he argued, the analysis merely identified overlapping trade flows without establishing any factual connection between India’s exports and concerns about forced labour.

He further criticised the proposal to impose a uniform 12.5 per cent tariff on nearly all imports from India, saying the determination was based on studies involving only a handful of economies and lacked sector-specific or contract-specific evidence.

“The adopted methodology is particularly flawed,” he said, because it relied on broad trade patterns rather than actual evidence relating to India.

Dr. Mohan urged the USTR to reconsider the proposed action in light of what he described as inconsistencies in the report and the Federal Register notice.

–IANS

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